The systems, apparatus, and methods described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily ones that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, what is described in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Generally, a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card is a small printed circuit board that must be inserted in a GSM-based mobile phone when signing on as a subscriber. The SIM card typically contains subscriber details, security information and memory for a personal directory of numbers. The card can be a small plug-in type or sized as a credit-card but has the same functionality. The SIM card also stores data that identifies the caller to the network service provider.
The SIM card is not movable between devices without utilizing a manual process. Indeed, a person owning multiple mobile devices has to manually move the SIM card containing subscriber identification information from one terminal to another. Typically, this long and cumbersome process includes: switching off the terminal, removing the back cover of the device, removing the battery, removing the SIM card, replacing the battery, replacing the cover, opening the cover of the second terminal, removing the battery of the second terminal, putting the SIM card into the second terminal, replacing the battery of the second terminal, replacing the cover of the second terminal, and powering up the second terminal.
This manual process of transferring a SIM card from one device to another only works if both devices are available. Also, if the device or terminal is lost or stolen, the user also loses the SIM card. Heretofore, there are no solutions that address these problems.
Published patent application WO 02089449, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, describes a software SIM. However, this published application handles SIM as one software component and consumes a lot of network bandwidth when the identity is changed from one device to another.
Thus, there is a need for SIM that can be easily transferred from device to device. Further, there is a need for an improved software SIM. Even further, there is a need for an improved method for associating subscriber identity information with multiple terminals.